• by Masha Geller , April 25, 2001

If you're a regular reader of this column, you know I'm very wary of endorsing anything in this day and age, so this will be a first for me. I'm talking about WebSideStory and the release of the latest version of their HitBox Enterprise service, which I think is one of the best website tracking tools available today - http://www.hitboxenterprise.com.

Simply put, HitBox can tell you just about everything you could ever want to know about user activity on a site you're considering for an ad buy (provided that site subscribes to HitBox).

I won't waste your time with a click-by-click description - just visit the site - because the real news here is that the new version boasts a number of new features and functions. Most notable - the ability to report on how people interact with anything from a small animation (including ads) to an entire website built with Macromedia Flash.

As you know, Flash is a streaming, low-bandwidth multimedia design technology that allows Web developers to create sophisticated animation, graphics, and sound. Web designers are increasingly using Flash to create sites that go beyond simple HTML pages to provide a more lively experience.

The problem with Flash is that to date it has been nearly impossible to track visitor activity within Flash elements and thus both publishers and advertisers (to borrow a quote from MediaPost columnist Michael Kubin) are "still sitting on the sidelines, waiting to make sure the water's safe."

HitBox is the first and only analysis service that can measure visitor interaction within Flash-animated objects.

And that, quite possibly, spells good news for the rich media industry. As Alex Konanykhin, president of KMGI Studios, Inc., a production company specializing in rich, multimedia content for the Web, said, "We think WebSideStory's new capability could lead to a big increase in the use of Flash for important business applications because it is now a measurable medium."